


For He's a Jolly Good Fellow

by onecent



Category: Hawkeye (Comics), Marvel, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Birthday, Birthday Presents, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-18
Updated: 2015-06-18
Packaged: 2018-04-05 02:18:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4161894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onecent/pseuds/onecent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Happy birthday, Clint! It's going to be a fun day full of gift-giving and memory-making.</p>
            </blockquote>





	For He's a Jolly Good Fellow

Natasha greeted him at the door to Avengers Mansion. "Happy birthday," she said, handing him a quiver. "You mentioned some new trick arrow designs?"

"Are these...?" he said, looking over the arrows. He pulled one out.

"That's the compound to dissolve Spider-Kid's webbing. Then this one..." She slid another arrow out. "Sonic. Very high-pitched. Should work well on animals and animal-types."

"You're the best, Nat!" he said, slinging an arm around her shoulder.

She grinned, pecked him on the cheek, and slipped away.

Clint pressed his hand against the entrance plate. The speakers above his head suddenly burst out with the birthday song. He flinched away from the noise and reached up to see if he could adjust his hearing aid.

"Good morning, Agent Barton," JARVIS said. "Happy birthday."

"Yeah, thanks. Any chance we could lose the music?" Clint ducked through the door as soon as it slid open.

"You'll have to take it up with Mr. Stark."

"Then that'll be the first stop."

Clint took the elevator to Tony's workshop. He turned his aids down all the way on the elevator ride. When the elevator doors opened, he looked around the room for Tony and shouted, "Turn it off!"

Tony waved a hand and Clint tried turning his hearing aid up again, only to find that the music had only switched to "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow." Clint glared and said, "Off."

"What, you don't like this song? Or you don't like the attention?" Tony waved again. "All right, JARVIS, that's good."

"Very well, sir." The music cut out.

"If you'd rather, I could forget your birthday entirely, but that would mean I would have to skip out on the present."

Clint reached over and picked up what appeared to be an abandoned piece of armor off a counter. "I'm sure I'd survive that, especially if it means I can actually walk around with my ears on today."

"Speaking of ears." Tony went over to one wall, pulled out a drawer, and grabbed a small box. "Here, try these." He threw them across the room. Clint grabbed the case with one hand and set the armor piece down. He opened the case to reveal a new set of hearing aids. "Extra durable, easy to access controls, and they hook up to your music. Bluetooth. They also connect to our comm system for missions. And flick the switch."

Clint toggled a tiny lever on the side of one aid. It switched from a pale peach color to bright purple with a black arrow design. "Nice. Thanks for the birthday gift."

"Actually, that's not the gift. This is the gift." Tony walked over and placed a small black square in Clint's hand. "That is a StarkPhone 4000. Those won't be coming out in stores until this Christmas, but because we're such good friends I figured I'd give you a head start."

Clint, thinking of the old flip-phone in his back pocket, took the new device with slight trepidation.

"I've already got that number programmed in my phone and all of your old numbers programmed in that one, so you can just take that home and have fun."

"Okay. Well. Thanks." Clint started for the elevator. As the doors slid open, the birthday song played again. He spun and glared at Tony again, who laughed and waved.

"Just a little joke!" he said. The music cut out.

Clint got into the elevator and finally managed to relax as he headed to the main common area. As the elevator doors slid open again, the first few bars of "Jolly Good Fellow" played again. He sighed and muttered, "That's going to happen whenever I enter a room, isn't it?"

"Barton!"

Looking up, Clint saw a group of others already in the room. Thor was smiling and waving at him, and Steve, Bruce, and Sam were already looking his direction. They all smiled with various degrees of warmth.

"Hey guys." Clint waved back and headed straight for the group.

"Happy birthday!" Steve said. "I've already set aside a couple hours for this afternoon. We're going to hang out together. It'll be great."

"I'll look forward to it."

"I didn't know it was your birthday," Sam said, "so I didn't get you anything. But I do have some cookies that I made. You can have first dibs."

"Awesome!" Clint put a hand over his stomach and grinned. Sam made fantastic cookies. Apparently it was a family recipe.

"My gift is for you to enjoy later." Thor pulled out a small jug. It was rather plain but closed with a large cork. "That is directly from Asgard, and I highly recommend having it in moderation."

Clint pulled out the cork, and just the fumes from the mead were enough to make his eyes swim. "Wow," he choked, closing it back up. "That is...that's intense."

Bruce shifted uncomfortably on the couch. "Perhaps I should give you this later..." he said.

"No, it's fine. It's good," Clint said.

Bruce pulled out a small, somewhat shoddily-wrapped gift. As Clint began to unwrap it, he rambled about the gift. "It's a wallet. Trifold wallet, though I'm not really sure why they call it that because it implies there are three folds when there are actually only two folds and just three sections. Anyway. I thought it might be useful. I know you like black, and it's got some extra spaces for pictures. I've got one of me that you can put in there or you can get rid of it. It's in that pocket, there. I wouldn't be hurt if you didn't want it. And then there's-"

Clint had to reach out a hand and put it on Bruce's shoulder. "This is great, man," he said with a big smile. "Thanks. It'll be really useful." Clint pulled out his own wallet, which was several years old and falling apart. "It's actually just in time, so it's perfect."

Bruce smiled back and settled incrementally more in his chair. "Great. That's good. So. I guess...I guess I'll go help Tony."

"And we can start training," Steve said to the others. "I've got some new maneuvers I think we should work through, and a couple of formations I'd like to go over."

Clint rolled his eyes. "Back to business, then, I guess," he said.

"You didn't expect special treatment all day, did you?"

"No, this is good. I've got some new ideas to try out, too." Clint pulled out his new phone and tapped at the screen a few times. Everything was fairly clearly labeled, and it wasn't like he didn't know how these things usually worked. It only took a minute to pull up the camera function. He smiled as the camera moved up to focus on Steve's face. "Let's go. This should be fun."

\--------------------

Clint walked through the door of his apartment with a large plush duck under his arm, a jug of Asgardian mead in his hand, and a bright blue sucker in his mouth. He fumbled with the keys for a moment, and it took him more time than he would ever admit to notice that someone else was in the room.

When he finally spotted Nick Fury, reclining on his couch, he froze in the doorway. "Hey," he said around the sucker.

Nick looked down at the duck. "Interesting fashion accessory," he said.

"It's from Steve. He won it for me. We went to Coney Island together and he played the, the game with the, um, the cups? And the ping pong ball? Yeah." Clint put the duck and the jug of mead on the counter. "He really wanted to get me this one. It was a bird, and he liked it because of the hat." He patted the purple baseball hat on the duck. "It only took him like forty tries to figure out how to not overshoot the cups. It was fun to watch. Did you know he starts, like, swearing when he gets upset?"

"I was aware, yes." Nick stood. He picked up a case from the couch next to him. "I assume the alcohol is from Thor?"

"He did give me his warning to be careful with it."

"Perhaps share it with your friend Logan."

"Uh, I'd actually like to try some myself, so probably not." Clint nodded at the case. "What's that?"

"Your birthday gift." Nick set it on the counter and spun it so the latches faced Clint.

He opened the case slowly. "This...is the same type of gun you got me last year."

"Wrong."

"No, seriously. I recognize it. It's the same gun." Clint lifted it up and held it in both hands.

"Warmer."

"What?" Clint looked more closely at the gun. He noted a long scratch along the barrel, and his eyes opened wide. "This is...the same gun? The exact same gun?"

"You need better security in this building. Consider that information a bonus gift from me."

"Bonus as in additional...?"

"To the gun." Nick nodded once. "Many happy returns of the day. I'll see you bright and early tomorrow for another mission, so don't spend too much time enjoying your gifts." He looked over at the mead, then glared at Clint and walked out the door. "I wasn't here."

Clint frowned at the gun and put it back in the case. He took the time to put it back in his closet before going out to the kitchen and making supper. He heard a scratching at the front door and opened it to see Lucky outside.

"Some guard dog you are," he said, watching the dog come inside. "Maybe let me know next time there are intruders instead of disappearing?"

As Clint finished cooking, the door swung open again. He looked down at the dog. "What did I just say?" he said.

"Don't talk to the dog," Kate said. "You're turning into that weird dog guy."

"Having one dog is not weird. Talking to him is also not weird. I talk to you."

Kate looked at him over the top of her sunglasses.

"Okay, sorry, I take it back. How are you, Kate?"

"I'm good. How are you? Did you have a good birthday?"

"Okay, I get how the Avengers knew about it, since they've got access to my record, but you--"

"Smarter than I look." She reached in her purse and pulled out a wrapped box. "Happy birthday."

Clint opened what turned out to be a coffee mug with an arrow painted on one side.

"A little pointed, don't you think?" he said.

"Ha, you're hilarious. Seriously, though, try it. You might even like it better than drinking straight from the pot."

Clint shrugged. "It's only another dish."

"Bonus, though, it's not disgusting."

There was another knock on the door. Clint stood to go answer it, leaving the mug on the table and Kate petting the dog. One of his tenants stood at the door, shifting his weight from foot to foot.

"Hey, uh, there's a uh, flood. In the basement."

"What?"

"Yeah, I think there might be a leak. It's all wet down there."

Clint groaned. "All right. I'll take care of it."

"Work doesn't stop for a superhero, huh?" Kate said with a small grin.

"Nope." Clint went into his bedroom and came out with a pair of rainboots. "Just another day for me."

Kate had spotted the duck and the mead. She was eyeing them both.

"Don't touch my birthday presents."

"Who the hell-"

"I promise, I'll tell you the story later." He put on the boots and went over to the doorway, where his tenant was still standing in the door. "All right, show me the mess."

"It's your birthday?" the guy said. "Happy birthday, man."

"Yeah," Clint said. "It kind of has been."

**Author's Note:**

> This fic ties into my story [Saw it and Thought of You](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4155840) which is part of my [Eyes and Ears](http://archiveofourown.org/series/272679) series with Clint Barton and Matt Murdock.
> 
> This story is a gift to you all, those of you who have already supported my work and those who might only read this story. Thank you so much, and know I read and warble over every comment.
> 
> Happy birthday Clint Barton, and I wish you another fifty fun years in comics.


End file.
